I put the plate in the dishwasher, then did my usual house walk before bed, checking the doors and windows. Stopping to eyeball the street again, I watched one lonely car trundle up our block until it reached the end and turned out of sight. It wasn’t the mysterious car that followed me from the highway; I recognized it as belonging to a house a few blocks down. The light came on briefly in the neighbor’s yard to our rear, and I heard her mumbling to her dog to hurry up his business. Blocks away, another dog started barking, to be silenced by its disgruntled owner. On the surface, things were as they should be.
As I walked down the hall toward the bedroom, I heard the softest of sounds from Mira’s sanctuary.
While I got the former closet as a haven, Mira had claimed the spare bedroom and converted it into her own little hideaway. The spare bed was shoved negligently into the corner and buried under piles of books, mostly research on things Mira wanted for the shop. Bundles of dried herbs dangled from hooks in the ceiling (an entire weekend’s work for me, to get those just how she wanted them), giving the room a pungent, earthy smell. Only Mira knew what they all were, and their purposes. To me, they just looked like dead weeds. A wreath of grapevines, woven into a pentacle, hung on the wall, and beneath it rested a small altar, all the implements of Mira’s faith set in their precise places.
Frowning, I poked my head in.
The candles were lit, one for each cardinal direction, lending a cheerful glow to the hardwood floor. The air in the room felt heavy, like the thickness before a lightning storm. A large metal basin sat in the center of the floor, filled with some kind of milky liquid. And on the far side, Mira sat huddled, arms wrapped around her knees and her face buried as she sobbed quietly.
“Mira?” Alarm sent my heart thudding into my throat again, and I stepped into the room, only to stop short when she flung her hand out toward me.
“Don’t! Don’t break the circle!” Hurriedly, she wiped tears from her face, crawling back to the basin. “You have to see this.”
I moved as close as I dared. Somewhere between us was a thin film of Mira’s own will, holding in her magic or keeping foreign magic out (I was never quite sure about the mechanics of it). I craned my head to see what she was working with.
“I was setting protective spells for Miguel and Rosaline, and it occurred to me that I could try a scrying, see if I could locate him.” Mira’s voice held steady as if she hadn’t just been crying her heart out, her hands making quick and efficient movements over the bowl of milky liquid. Ever practical, that’s my girl. “Here, watch.”
The flickering candlelight made vision difficult, and I strained my eyes to see what Mira saw. The liquid in the bowl—heavily salted water, if I had to guess—swirled in response to my wife’s graceful gestures, clouds of white following her hands like a magnet. Once she had them swirling in a very nice whirlpool, she withdrew her hands, and the water took on a life of its own.
At first, it was no more than streams of white through the water, caught up in the vortex momentum. But gradually, the lines began to diverge and congregate, solidifying into something like the reverse of a black-and-white movie. The first thing I recognized was the shape of a man, and as it grew clearer, sharper, I was able to recognize Miguel in negative, his black hair stark white in the reversed image.
But what was he doing? It looked at first as if he were going through katas, the same exercises I did every morning to practice my fighting skills. But Miguel wasn’t a martial artist, and as far as I knew, he didn’t work through forms like I did.
He lunged with the weapon in his hand and chopped hard to the right. That’s not his machete, I thought, and I leaned as close as I could to look. In fact, it looked suspiciously like a baseball bat. What the hell? No one in his right mind used a nonbladed weapon unless he had no choice.
Next, he spun to the left, aiming a low block at some invisible enemy. Then his left shoulder jerked back in response to a blow I could not see. Before he could bring the weapon around again, something hit him hard enough to spin him in a circle. The bat went flying out of his hand and out of view. The grimace of pain was visible on the tiny dark face, even in the dim light. This was no kata, and I was only getting half the scene.
“Why can’t I see what’s there with him?”
“I only have something of his. The salt in the bowl is bound to the salt in his body.” Glancing away from the disturbing images playing out in the water, I saw her fidget with something tiny in one hand.
Miguel’s negative image doubled in half, taking some kind of blow to the stomach, and then dropped to his knees. The next strike came to the back of his neck. I knew it even before his body sprawled on the ground, simply because that is what I would do to a kneeling opponent. For long moments, he lay there; the salt-image wasn’t precise enough to be able to see if he was breathing. Finally, one arm jerked upward at an awkward angle.
“Is this happening right now?”
Mira shook her head, eyes fixed on the basin. “No, it hasn’t changed in the last two hours. This is just the last thing I can see before he was taken beyond my sight.” Being dragged, I realized. Whatever had taken him down was slowly dragging the body off . . . somewhere. “Beyond your sight. Dead?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see any more. Something just . . . ends it.” The salt abruptly dissipated, the basin clouding over into murky water. The item in her hand dropped free, clattering across the floor. It crossed the barrier of her magic circle and came to rest against my foot. A wooden bead; I recognized it from a choker Miguel always wore.
Mira curled up again, hiding her face against her knees, and I immediately crossed the broken circle to gather her into my arms. She wrapped her arms around me and held me as tightly as she could, shaking. “Shh . . . You did good, baby. You did real good.”
Her skin was ice-cold. I could feel it through the thin fabric of my shirt. God, how many hours had she been sitting here, just watching that horrible image replay into infinity and holding that thread of magic as it drained her strength? And I, like a jerk, stopped to eat dinner in the kitchen first. “You shouldn’t have done this. . . . It wasn’t worth this, baby.”
“We had t- t-to know.” One small sob shook her; then she took a deep breath to gather herself, just as I knew she would. “Are you going to tell Rosaline?”
I looked at the bowl of salted water and shook my head. “No. We don’t know that he’s dead, and . . . there’s no need for her to know this.” Hell, I wished Mira didn’t know it. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
I got her to her feet with some urging, then scooped her up into my arms. She didn’t even protest, providing evidence of the incredible exhaustion caused by her efforts. I got her tucked into the bed with some extra blankets, but she still shivered visibly. “Check on Anna p-p-please?”
In her room, Annabelle was sprawled in her big-girl bed in one of those positions only kids and cats can sleep in. I tucked her in and kissed her forehead before returning to Mira in our bedroom.
She barely stirred as I undressed and crawled into bed beside her, but the moment I was under the covers she turned to snuggle tightly against me. Her entire body was almost frozen, and I pressed her close to take advantage of my body heat. Big magic takes a lot out of you, or so I’m told. She’d be freezing and exhausted for hours.
I kissed her forehead. “Go to sleep, baby.”
She was probably asleep before the words left my mouth. I lay awake a little longer, just listening to her breathing in the dark. After a while, I could swear our hearts beat in unison. The house did its nightly creaking and groaning around us. Down the hall, I could hear Annabelle mumbling in her sleep. She gets that from me.
My big secret—probably not that well kept—was that I hated Mira’s magic. The passive spells were one thing. The protective stuff on the house, some hocuspocus on my armor, was simple stuff. It lay in wait to be triggered. But the active spells, such as the scrying she’d done tonight, drained so much out of
her.
If I hadn’t come home, how long would she have held that circle closed? There were horror stories, things I’d gleaned from Ivan and others, of magical addicts, casting and casting until their life was literally drained away into their craft. I didn’t think Mira would go that far, but I worried. I never wanted her to sacrifice so much for me. I wasn’t worth it.
Regardless of what I’d seen in Mira’s salt scrying, there was nothing I could do for Miguel at this exact moment. And with a job on the horizon, I would need all the rest I could get. But oh how I dreaded sleep.
The dream came like it always does. Well, not always, but a good seventy-five percent of my nights are spent fighting old battles.
I’m not sure where I was. It was dark. It’s always dark in my dreams. Snow crunched under my boots, and I could smell pine needles. Maybe I was back with the president again, my blood draining into the soil of Camp David.
I didn’t feel injured, though, just cold. And everything was so quiet—quiet enough that I could hear the breathing to my right. The breaths were large, pumped through massive lungs. I knew those breaths. I’d felt them on my face, over my chest. And if they got that close again, the pain would follow soon after. I reached for my katana to find my hip bare. I was unarmed.
“I know you’re there.” My voice echoed as if I were inside a jar—or a cave maybe. I’d never fought underground, but who said dreams had to make sense?
I was answered by a low rumbling growl, distinctive in pitch and tone. It’s the one sound in the world that makes my guts turn to water and my legs go all quivery. I turned to keep it in front of me—or where I thought was in front of me. I couldn’t get my bearings in the all-consuming blackness.
“Just get it over with. I don’t like playing games.” It did, though. I knew it just as surely as I knew what waited out there in the dark. It would play with me, even after it got its claws on me. It would toss me in the air and bat me around like a cat with a mouse.
The growl came again from the front, but the attack came from the rear as I had known it would. Even knowing it, I couldn’t turn fast enough; I couldn’t strike hard enough. The red eyes and silver claws seemed to float from the endless night, and swept toward me in a beautiful and deadly arc. And there was nowhere for me to go when the Yeti struck home.
To my credit, I no longer lurch from bed yelling and waking the whole house up, so my eyes merely popped open, following the slow spin of the ceiling fan as my heart pounded in my ears. In her sleep, Mira snuggled close, perhaps sensing my distress, but when she found my skin sweat-soaked, she frowned faintly.
“Shhh . . . Sleep, baby. It’s okay.” That seemed to be all the reassurance she needed, and the creases on her brow smoothed. For my part, I lay awake for another hour, counting revolutions of the fan and waiting to see if the Yeti would pay me another visit.
The night officially sucked.
6
The cannonball landing in the middle of my bed announced dawn’s arrival. Annabelle giggled, proud of herself. “Mommy, come turn cartoons on for me!”
Keep in mind, my daughter is quite capable of manipulating the television on her own. I’m pretty sure she could program the DVR. But it is always more fun to have Mommy or Daddy do it for her.
Although she could barely keep her feet, Mira slid out of bed before I was fully awake, and my girls disappeared down the hallway. I struggled out of my short nap, intent on at least trying to help Mira with breakfast this morning.
Pulling on a pair of loose sweats, I grabbed a ratty T-shirt and shambled my way out through the kitchen. Mira’s eyes were ringed with dark circles, but she threatened me with a spatula when I tried to go near the stove. “Out. I have this.”
I debated for several long moments before relenting. If she said she was all right, then she must be all right. I kissed her gently, and then Anna, before I headed out to the backyard. The cold dew on my bare feet served to wake me up quite nicely. Of course, it was a thousand times better than the subzero midwestern winter we’d just passed, so I wasn’t about to complain.
The sun was barely up high enough to shine over our neighbor’s privacy fence, casting my long shadow across the yard. I kept my face to the light but closed my eyes as I set about going through my morning katas. It allowed me to feel the warmth as it seeped into my stiff muscles, feel the life flowing into my limbs without the distraction of sight.
I could do every kata I knew without thought, simply moving through the forms for the exercise, but that wasn’t my preference. Each gesture, each step had a purpose and a function. The graceful wave of my hand here could snap bone at speed. This step to the left would block a low kick and bring me inside an opponent’s guard. Each movement was at once beautiful and potentially lethal. Something like that should be contemplated. Before a person does something he should always have a full awareness of his capabilities and where his actions might lead.
I follow the bushido, the Japanese code of honor and conduct dating back to the thirteenth century and possibly before. The samurai believed in loyalty, frugality, mastery of oneself and one’s art, and most important, honor. You might wonder how in the world one comes to call himself a modern samurai.
Well, I wasn’t always the fine upstanding member of society you see today. I had a temper, as a child. Oh, who am I kidding? I still do. But at fifteen, it was fueled by all the usual teenage angst, the slings and arrows of a misspent youth. I traveled with a pack of like-minded degenerates and malcontents, and we left destruction and violence in our wake. I wasted more nights than I like to think about, blitzed on whatever drug we could easily get our hands on, gleefully causing mayhem in the name of whatever entitlement we felt we had. I was headed down that long road that so many travel and very few escape.
The best thing that ever happened to me was getting arrested for chucking cinder blocks through business windows. Sure, you might say I was a juvenile, and therefore pretty much untouchable, but you didn’t grow up in my little Missouri town. They still believed in straps behind the woodshed back then.
There was no getting out of it. The cops caught me red-handed while my supposed friends bailed out over the back fence. I remember standing there in the flashing blue lights, fists clenched, ready to take on the world simply because it existed. These days, a kid like that would get shot, but I grew up in a different time. It probably saved my life.
The second-best thing to happen was coming before Judge Carter, a staunch advocate of alternative punishments. It was his idea to stick me in a court-mandated martial arts class, saying it would teach me discipline and control. (His opponents insisted it would teach me only a more efficient way to cause havoc, and he retired under pressure shortly thereafter. I still send him a Christmas card every year.)
I hated him, at the time. I hated the class. I hated the sensei, and all the other clean-cut, bright-eyed students. I sulked my way through, feeling they were lucky I even showed up. Any effort on my part was just gravy.
While I would like to tell you there was a tiny little Asian man in my life, a Mr. Miyagi to set me on my path, there wasn’t. Instead, I had Carl. Carl Bledsoe was as large and as black as they come. As a teenager, I had to crane my neck upward to look into his face, and he seemed an immovable mountain of solid obsidian. As an adult, I still do, and he still is. Every once in a while, I go spar with him and get my ass handed to me. I’m getting closer to beating him, though. Maybe someday I will, when he’s old and in a wheelchair or something. (Hell, he’ll probably just run over my spine with it.)
He worked out in a cut-off sweatshirt and Gi pants, his thighs as big around as my waist, and his biceps bulging like cantaloupes about to burst. Back then, I had no doubt in my mind that he could squash me like a bug and laugh while doing it. He told me so himself. Trust me—he cut me no slack. If I wasn’t on the ball, I paid for it. But amidst the sparring and the humiliation, he would also spout sayings and ruminations that sounded really cool, things I’d never heard in my slee
py redneck town. He would say, “For a warrior whose duty it is to restrain brigandage, it will not do to act like a brigand yourself.” I even went and looked up brigand, just to see what it meant. I liked the idea of being a warrior instead of a punk kid.
I was way too cool at the time to admit I was intrigued, of course, so I mocked Carl and called him some names I refuse to repeat now. But I remembered everything he said, and I wondered where he’d learned it.
One day, after my usual halfhearted efforts, he tossed me a video as I headed out the door.
“What the hell is this?” I wrinkled my nose, turning the case over in my hands. It was some old black-and-white movie, and I sneered.
“Kurosawa. The Seven Samurai. Watch it. It’s in Japanese, but it has subtitles.”
“You give me a movie, then expect me to read?”
He grinned, white teeth flashing against his ebon skin. “Trust me.”
I watched it, just so I could tell him how lame and stupid it was. Then I watched it again. After about the fifth viewing, I knew parts of it by heart. My favorite scene involved the samurai who masqueraded as a monk to disarm an enemy with his bare hands. My mom told me The Magnificent Seven was based on it, so I had her rent that and watched it, too. It wasn’t as good, in my opinion, but I could see the parallels between the two movies, the themes that carried over. Here were men with honor, who used their powers for good (so to speak). I was fascinated.
When I took the movie back to Carl at my next weekly class, I felt so educated and worldly. After all, I’d watched a foreign film! Carl quickly proved me wrong.
“If you want to truly understand bushido, and the way of the samurai, you have to read—a lot. Samurai were educated men, not just trained thugs.”
A Devil in the Details Page 6